


tomorrow is another day.

by recycledstars



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-14
Updated: 2009-11-14
Packaged: 2017-10-19 21:17:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/205305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/recycledstars/pseuds/recycledstars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Addison comes back to Seattle, she meets Lexie.</p>
            </blockquote>





	tomorrow is another day.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not a huge Mark/Lexie shipper because Mark/Addison will always, always own me heart and soul, but I do like them for now. And so, that's how I approached this. Written for the Mark and Lexie drabble-a-thon for the prompt Mark/Lexie, Addison - tension. This was written during Grey's season 5 I think, Mark and Lexie were still together and Addison was having a string of romantic bad luck on Private Practice. It was before Sam. (Though arguably, Sam didn't really fix that.)
> 
> (Side note: Isn't _Gone With The Wind_ amazing?)

Mark makes Lexie jealous – which is not something Lexie is accustomed to being. She is a nice girl, a good girl as Mrs Shepherd put it, and she usually sees the good in everyone and assumes the best of people. But with him, the selfishness of love has dug its claws into her heart and the poison is slowly spreading. And that means Mark makes her jealous. Or, more specifically (because Lexie is a reasonable person, this temporary insanity aside), Mark’s exes make her jealous. Actually (and Lexie is just going to come right out and say it) Addison Montgomery makes her jealous. Because she has fabulous red hair, not the red-brown carrot-top kind, and flawless skin and she was a world-class surgeon and she was pretty sure Addison didn’t approve of Mark dating her and she was also pretty sure that as the only other woman Mark had ever loved, Addison’s opinion counted for something with him. Not to mention they had history, upwards of twenty years of history in fact – Mark knew Addison when Lexie was starting kindergarten and how was she supposed to compete with that?

So Lexie was feeling jealous and nervous and she was on Doctor Montogomery’s service for one hellish day. She had spent most of the morning shuffling her feet and trying to fade into the walls whenever Addison looked at her, because Addison’s looks were piercing. And Lexie thought that maybe, just maybe, Addison was a little bit jealous of her too. The atmosphere was tense, and she knew it was reaching breaking point.

And now they’re in an elevator, a very small, confined space, alone. And Addison is glaring at her. Well ok, maybe she’s not glaring, Addison is too classy to glare, but she’s definitely looking at her, appraising her, and Lexie doesn’t want to know what she’s deciding beneath that calm, professional exterior. Even though Addison has been nothing but polite since the moment they met, Lexie is pretty sure Addison hates her.

“You really hurt him you know,” Lexie remarks suddenly, sick of feeling uncomfortable beneath the other woman’s scrutiny.

Addison’s expression softens slightly, but that (it turns out) is just more intimidating.  
She sighs, “I didn’t mean to.”

“Well you did,” Lexie sniffs, then pries, because she’s curious and Mark never talks about Addison with her. It’s the one topic he refuses to discuss. “Were you in love with him?”

  
Addison swallows, shifts from one high-heeled foot to the other, “In a way. In the wrong way,” she corrects herself, “It was a short fuse kind of love Dr Grey, and in the long term you need slow burn. Besides, Mark isn’t that kind of guy.”

“He loved you,” Lexie tells her primly, emphasis on past tense. And what she doesn’t say is _he’s that kind of guy with me_.

Addison hears it though and the implication of her responding look is just as clear because Addison went to an elite private girl’s school and is much better at loaded looks that Alexandra Grey. _Maybe he would have been with me too_ with just a hint of _bitch, please_.

-

“Mark,” she greets him with a friendly smile.

“Addison,” he grins back.

Lexie can almost feels the sparks coming off them and takes a step back. Well, it’s ok that they have chemistry because she has underwear and a toothbrush in his apartment, she has him. But he looks a little too pleased and laughs a little too much at inside jokes for her taste. She excuses herself and goes to prep Addison’s patient for surgery.

-

They’re laughing about nothing after the surgery goes well and it all feels so familiar and they’re so comfortable together that Addison suddenly brings her hand to her mouth and goes dead quiet, “What happened to us Mark?”

His fingers close around her sleeve because he can sense she’s close to crying and that’s why she’s asking that question, the way he knows her better than she knows herself sometimes and wilfully misunderstands her at others. They’re standing in an on-call room now, and goodness knows what the rumour mill will make of that.

“What do you mean?” he asks, chest cavity taking a beating from his heart, “Tell me you don’t mean what I think you mean.”

“I,” she looks all around his face miserably but refuses to make eye contact, “I just mean… we. You were right, we were good together.”

“And now you’re asking what happened to us? Now you agree with me?” his anger is a short-lived spark, and he finishes the tirade before it really begins. “You didn’t want me,” he says lamely.

“I know,” she whispers quietly, “It’s ok, really, it’s my own fault.”

“I don’t know what to tell you Addison,” he sits beside her and sighs, “You left. I… I moved on. That’s what you wanted.”

“She’s too young for you Mark.”

He bristles. She senses it and continues, “Don’t get mad. I’m not commenting out of jealousy. I just – I don’t want you to get hurt, again.”

“You reserve the right to be the only woman to hurt me?” he remarks, incredulously, “Is that what you want?”

“No,” she protests, lamely, because yes, that’s what Addison Montgomery wants, in a way. “Well, sort of. Mostly I just don’t want to see you hurt again.”

“Liar,” he sort of growls, then softens as he whispers, “That’s what we do, Ad, we hurt each other.”

“That’s what love is,” she replies in kind.

He stares at her, ice blue eyes sad. “No it’s not,” he tells her quietly but with conviction, “It doesn’t have to be. And I’m not going to be fucking Romeo to your fucking Juliet,” he informs her, “I know it’s fucking tragic Addison, but I care about you too much, hell, I still love you too much to be the death of you.”

“Funny,” she says, “I always pictured us more as Cathy and Heathcliff.”

“Yeah well,” he shrugs, “You get the picture. We’re a doomed and dysfunctional romance for the books.”

“It’s funny,” she remarks after a moment of weighted silence, “That’s how I felt when I left – that we were averting disaster. But now, now you’re happy and I,” she swallows, uncomfortable, “It’s ugly,” she warns him.

“I know,” he answers quietly, “I get it, really I do. It’s not that you want to be with me, because you know that’s bad for the both of us, but you don’t want me to be with anyone else either.”

“Something like that,” she admits, fingering the hem of her skirt.

“That’s why you married Derek,” he accuses her.

She shrugs, “And I loved him.”

“Not like you love me,” he counters.

“I could say the same thing about Lexie,” she points out.

He nods, then looks down, feeling a pang in his gut that brings back the memory of lunch in the back of his throat, “Addison, I hope to God I never love anyone else the way I love you.”

She meets his gaze glassy eyed and sniffs, turning her head suddenly so a curtain of hair hides the tears which she hurriedly palms away, “I know. But one day Mark, when we’re too old to do anything about it, we’ll realise that we wasted too much time, and that’s our greatest tragedy.”

“Cheer up Scarlett O’Hara,” he says, tilting her chin up until she meets his eyes, “Tomorrow is another day.”

She laughs humourlessly as he leaves, “That it is, that it is.”

-

Lexie is starting to feel like the green eyed monster when she hears about the on call room thing, and she’s waiting and ready when he gets home, ready with a speech and ready to demand he tell her what on earth happened between him and Addison. (Meredith’s told her most of the story, but she needs to hear it from him.)

But he kisses her when she meets him at the door, even though she makes angry noises against his mouth and resists as much as possible.

“I love you,” he says, and that’s too much too soon but Lexie sort of feels the same way so she lets it slide with a surprised, “Oh.”

“And you’re not the only woman I’ve loved,” he admits, “I know you’re wondering what the hell was going on with Addison, so fine, I loved her, but she’s the only woman who ever broke my heart and you’re the only woman who’s ever made me happy. So tell me, which one would you rather be?”

Lexie isn’t jealous anymore. And this time, she lets him kiss her without protest.  



End file.
